Sunday, July 29, 2007

Le Tour

The Grand Boucle is now over and as the doping dust continues to settle we see that many former favorites have exercised poor judgement in pursuit of greatness. Despite everything that has happened, this year's Tour was very exciting. Yesterday, Levi Leipheimer time trialed his way into third place with what was agruably the ride of his life, Alberto Contador held off a raging Cadel Evans to win the yellow jersey, and today Tom Boonen sealed the deal on his first green jersey.

We can only hope that those responsible for doping, stop; and those responsible for enforcement, continue to improve. As a fan, amateur racer, and frequent spectator the thought of clean riders getting their asses handed to them by riders who are doped up and not getting caught reflects poorly on the sport and makes us question everytime a rider wins or has a great day - is he doped?

This rider is clean, those behind him are probably not.

With Rassmussen (yes, he gets an extra 's' in his name now) sacked by his team sponsor, Rabobank, while in the yellow jersey a big-time sponsor has sent the message that it is better to lose than to win dirty or tainted (Flandis). Rabobank is paying the riders on the team the same bonus that they would have won had Rassmonkey gone on to win the Tour. Small substitute for Denis Menchov who was their original GC contendor and ended up riding support for Rassmonkey - forfeiting his hopes for a podium spot.

Discovery put two riders on the podium which should them find a new sponsor. Rumor has it that Compaq/HP may be stepping up. I thought that Steve Jobs should get in on the action by forming the iTeam, but perhaps there would be a clashing of egos between Steve and LA who is a part owner of the Discovery team.